


Agony Redux

by zarabithia



Category: DCU (Comics), Green Lantern (Comics), Justice League of America (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 15:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13460925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: Post-Rebirth, Hal remembers what used to be.





	Agony Redux

**Author's Note:**

> Ahaha, this is post Hal's rebirth, not DC's rebirth. So.

  
Coming back from the dead has caused Hal to make many adjustments. Most of them are petty little life issues that cause him more annoyance than genuine grief.  
  
There is the tiny matter of getting a job again, for instance.  Trying to explain the gap in his employment is a genuine pain in Hal’s ass. The mundane little tasks of obtaining an apartment, getting a driver’s license, never mind a car loan, have also been long exercises in near futile tediousness.  
  
But then there are the more important adjustments. Hal isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to come to terms with what he’d done during his time as Parallax.   Seeing the distrust and anger on his friends’ faces - even the ones who know the full story about Parallax- hurts Hal, but he can’t very well blame them.  He can’t imagine that a time will ever come in which he will be able to stand next to Alan Scott without feeling unworthy of the legacy, next to John or Guy without feeling as though he’d let them down, or next to Kyle without feeling guilt for all that he’d dumped in the kid’s lap.  
  
But there is one pain that consumes more of Hal’s time than all the mundane readjustments and hurts more than any act he’d committed as Parallax.  
  
That pain is having to lose Barry Allen all over again.  
  
Of course, even before becoming Parallax, Hal had never completely gotten over Barry’s loss.  Every one of his days had been a little less bright and his nights had bordered on absolutely unbearable.  
  
But he’d finally gotten past the initial grieving stage and had moved on as much as one can when their best fiend and lover died to save the world.  
  
Then Hal had died.  
  
Then he’d come back.  
  
Each morning the memory of losing Barry seems fresher than it was the day before.  Each night scenes of what he and Barry used to do drive him to the brink of insanity until that sweet moment when sleep, exhaustion, or both claims him.  
  
Part of Hal knows that the healing process of time will eventually kick back in. He knows that the memories will grow less vivid, the pain less sharp, and the loss less unbearable.  
  
Somehow, that knowledge hurts him the most.


End file.
